A familiar face
by Gemicore
Summary: A story about my vampyre-OC Gemma Brown, who will go to House of Night. But everything gets more exciting when there suddenly's a familiar face among the servants of Nyx. My first fanfiction ever, read the books in swedish, everything might not be correct, since I have to translate it with poor english vocabulary. ;;
1. Chapter 1

I recognized him immediately. You know, the guy I always talk about, the one that plays the main part in my nightmares? It was him. I could feel the tears build up in my eyes at the first, brief sight.

_Whose life was he going to ruin this time?_

I had stopped up the natural flow in the hall. Lots of people, far too interested in their own conversations to notice me, walked right into my back. I was too fixated with the campus outside the window to make a shuttered 'sorry' leave my mouth.

My friends hadn't noticed my sudden stop; I could see them a few meters in front of me. Or maybe they did notice, but simply didn't care about it. Maybe it was all for the best. They didn't even know about my nightmares. I don't trust them enough at the moment. I probably never will. Those fake, lying Barbie bitches wouldn't care about anything else than their flawless teenage dream. I was starting to doubt myself, why was I even talking to them? Had my self-esteem finally killed itself?

My eyes swept across the corridor. The hall was almost empty now – two guys stood in the corner checking out some note on a bulletin board. Therefore, pretending I was interested in the birds playing in the sky, I approached the window. The guy in the military jacket and the skintight, black jeans was standing under an elm. Staring at… _Me?_

_No. This couldn't happen. Not to me. Not again. No._

Without thinking of it, I let the tears seek their way down my cheeks as my hands were trying to break the windowsill. The water that left my eyes created interesting pattern when they landed on the marble, which constituted the floor in the, now, empty hallway.

A naive thought rushed through my head. He never marked the students when they had lessons. Therefore, I ran off to my math class, just as the bell rang.

Equations and algebra, nothing really got stuck. There was nothing else I could concentrate at, besides how the hell I would get out without the vampyre tracker stopping me.

I destroyed my lips, trying to bite into them instead of screaming and crying. Maybe crawl up on the floor. They all seemed tempting.

Nell, one of the plastic creatures that left me crying in the hall, gave me a weird look. Oh yeah. I forgot I probably looked like a raccoon with out-cried make-up. Damn it. As if this day could get any worse. I'd become a vampyre die. I was going to die. Someone in this damn society was going to shoot me, or I wasn't going to complete the change. I'm just sure I won't survive this shit, that's suddenly has become my life. Is it possible for a reality to fall apart in two minutes?

Nell raised her eyebrows, trying to make me explain. Should I use sign language, shout it at her, pass her a note? I'm not even sure that would help. She should realize what's wrong. How do you miss a dead guy at campus?

I shook my head, and lowered my gaze, trying to concentrate at numbers and letters in my book. They had started bleeding ink over my page. I hadn't realized I was crying again.

What. Is. Wrong. With. Me? I wanted to hit my head in the desk at every syllable.

Memories. Pictures. Words. Things I wanted to forget shyly rattled, in some kind of question. Is it okay to be remembered again?

I stood up, but my head was blank. Forgetting the nice excuse I was going to trick Mrs Barett, my math teacher, with. Everyone was staring at me, including her over the golden spectacle frames she always wore.

"I… I need to go to the bathroom"

The first excuse that popped into my head.

Mrs Barett gave me a confused look, but slightly nodded. As I half ran, half walked out, she told my classmates, with her well-known, croaking voice to continue their calculations.

My first thought was my locker. My steps echoed through the halls' floors.

_Do not find me. Do not find me. Do not find me. Do not find me. Do not find me. _

I took my dull colored bag and my old, black jacket out of there. A picture I once taped up on the inside slid down in my bag too.

I didn't even care about closing my locker. My feet just made my sneakers scurry through the hall.

I actually though I had a shot when I stood in the main entrance. I really did. But, of course, I was wrong. Once again. I was three steps outside at the campus when my eyes met his. I had almost run into him.

"Gemma Brown. Your death shall be your birth. The night has chosen you, and it's calling for you. Listen to her delightful voice. Your destiny is waiting for you, at the House of Night."

Then things happened fast, but more importantly, at the same time;

His voice echoed over the school. I could hear students' feet chattering down the halls and the stairs. They want to know who's going to die this time.

Mrs Barett, my human mentor, squeaked a little, horrified "Gemma!" as she get out at the campus.

And also, and the winner of my concern, was that he shot me in the head with his finger.

Someone suddenly killed every light source and my knees gave in beneath me.

Suddenly blinded I fell to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

As my eyes opened, at first afraid of what they might see, I realized that the tracker had left and it was time to deal with reality. Problem number one; the moment. Hundreds of students were staring at me. Or, well. Not me as much as my forehead. I hadn't seen anything, though I already knew what I would see. A sapphire blue crescent. The ultimate target, the place most of the Hunters in this town was aiming for.

I don't think there are Hunters in every town. Maybe they have learnt to accept the reality – there are vampyres. Though, the people of this town, doesn't accept the facts. They still think that they… Ugh, _we_ are demons that are going to kill them to take a bath in their blood and eat their eyes. I don't even know half of that they predict will happen if we live. Therefore, the House of Night in Sangy ( yes, it's a very odd name for a city, but we do live here. And we do have a House of Night ) is very closed and protective of their fledglings and of course of their vampyres too. They know that if they leave their campus, which is surrounded my sky-high metal fences, someone will succeed to kill them.

_Us_.

I'm one of them, one of the weird ones. One of the isolated ones.

I am like him now.

That thought was like gasoline to the fire my thoughts had begun to smolder in the corners of my mind. _I would be able to find him._

After three years of pointless search, I would find him again. My best friend. My other half. My secret crush since I was fourteen years old and caught his eyes across the campus.

I jumped up in a quarter of a second. The mob-to-be around me took a frightened step back. I gave them a quick, hazel look and then I ran off.

The bag was carelessly thrown over my right shoulder. My black, double-breasted jacket wasn't firmly closed; the sleeves were hanging and covered half of my palms. A few strands had ninja-like sneaked out of my blonde ponytail. I just didn't care.

Breathing got harder and harder, and after running for what I estimated to be 10 minutes, I stopped behind an elm. Just the thought of the species made me shiver, but I ignored it and sat down for a few minutes, to catch my breath. My dad would ask unnecessary questions if I came home, looking scared again. We had just gotten over that last, annoying silence that always slipped down between us.

Even at this point, I could feel my classmates' glares at my back. It was stupid to feel that way – the forest surrounded the school. I almost became invisible… I _was_ invisible. If they hadn't followed me, there's not a change that they possibly could see me right now.

I closed my eyes strained, trying to cleanse my mind.

"For the moment" I silently said to myself, "I am not marked. I will not move. I will not change. _I will not die._"

Weirdly enough, that last one frightened me the least.

I wasn't afraid of death. If you died, you wouldn't have the secular issues that the living have. To be honest, I couldn't wait to leave them behind me. An unanswered search for someone I didn't know was alive or not. A split-up family where my half rarely was around. "Friends". I am a misfit in my deformed plastic world.

I exhaled with a deep sigh. At least I wouldn't have to care of my Barbie haircut anymore, I thought, and loosened the hair tie that held my hair in place. Golden, straight hair that reached my waist fell down from my crown. I stuck my hand down into the tangled nest that had become, and ruffled around. The curls eagerly bounced, happy to be free from their tied-up prison.

I was almost calm, when I heard a creaking.

My head immediately turned to the source of the noise.

I couldn't find an explanation in the woods around me for my sudden instinct. I just felt something was wrong. My heart pounded like never before, and yet again, I started running for my life.

The feeling of someone's eyes on your back while running through an increasable darkening forest. If you have ever felt it, you know how indescribable horrifying it is. I didn't even have the guts to turn around, afraid that someone actually would stand there watching me.

My feet landed on our stair about five minutes later. My heart pounded, making my chest move for more than it normally did. My head hurt and I felt like I was going to faint. I shook my head, determined. I wasn't going to fall to the ground a second time the same day. I wasn't that pathetic. I hoped.

I unlocked the door with shaking hands, and pushed down the handle just I had done a thousand times before. It took me a couple of minutes to form a shattered "Hello?" in my mouth. Just in case someone was home. Who am I kidding, no one is ever home. I threw my keys on the dinner table with a broken leg. Funny story. I drew a pink elephant on the, now, missing leg as a five year old. My father came home drunk and he lost control, screaming all sorts of incomprehensible things. Then poof, the leg was broken and lay in the corner. Splinters from it covered the floor like leaves from the trees in autumn time.

The table dissatisfied moved a little just under the weight of my keys. I wouldn't ever going to use them again, huh? They could just as well lay there.

I ran up the stairs. My steps echoed in the whole house, which by the way wasn't that big. A weird poster in a frame threatened me by pulling out the nail that was holding it up and break. Please do, I wanted to tell it. You're the only interesting thing in this house anyway, why can't a weird chair or a thumbed book have the attention for once?

I think I heard the fragile glass of the poster hit the floor when I slammed my door shut.

I opened my wardrobe and took a look at the clothes I had. I started tearing them out.

"Fake, fake, ugly, fake"

I said the words as I took a look at one shirt after another.

When I was done, all of my clothes lay on the floor. Two pair of jeans, one blue and one black, was in the bag I had during our London-trip when I was five and my mother was still with us.

Along with the pants, there were two plains tops and three T-shirts.

All of the other, glittery, shimmering clothes was soon to be forgotten. If I was going to die, I was going to be myself. For the first time in who-knows how long.

I searched my room for things I was interested in keeping.

It ended up being a few types of make-up, a bracelet with hazel pearls my mother got me on my fourth birthday, my hair brush, and a few other objects.

It really wasn't much I wanted to keep from my passed life I realized. And as I wasn't going to stay here, I thought.

I tore down all the photographs I had of my Barbie-friends from the walls. Small pieces of colorful paper flew all around the room when the memories I had were lying on the floor.

Then, for the first time that day, I took the handles of my bag and walked down the stairs with dignity. And…

Crap. Of course. Isn't it just a perfect moment for you to show up? I thought to myself, incredibly annoyed that my father got home, just as I was going to write him a note and never see him again.

"Gem, are you home?" a bit surprised. Great. This was going to be awkward.

"Yes, dad, I'm home. But erhm… I don't have time to talk, okay?"

I bit my lip, hoping that he would go to the living room and watch TV. Not a normal behavior for my father, but why shouldn't I be allowed to dream?

I couldn't run away now, I realized. I had to face the tears he was going to drown me in. But as I turned the corner, I was surprised. He didn't cry. He didn't even look surprised as he saw my sapphire blue crescent.

"Do you need a ride?" he just asked. I was kind of proud of him. Ever since my mother died, he has been crying over everything.

"I was going to take the bus…" I tried to sneak away without hurting him. I clearly didn't succeed.

"I'm not a horrible driver, you know Gems." he said, with that face that I never could resist. When he looked like a said puppy that wanted a hug but didn't get one. "Or at least as horrible as you think"

I rolled my eyes and gave up. And that's when my father took me out to the car, to give me a lift to my early death.


	3. Chapter 3

The golden lights along the highways turned into rarely broken radiant lines. Red eyes in front of me came closer and closer, disappeared and then grew closer again. I don't think you were allowed to keep the speed my father held. But what did I know? I didn't even have a stupid driving's license yet.

The silence was just as awkward as you can imagine it would be. A, to me, uninteresting radio station kept nagging about how G.R.E.A.T their new show was, my dad was muttering the opposite. I tried to make myself invisible as I stared out the window on my right side.

How come the night suddenly had become beautiful to me? I had always been afraid of the darkness, and now, all of a sudden, it was the most amazing thing my eyes had ever witnessed.

Every shadow held a blue-shifting rainbow. The wet road in front of the windshield flashed as the lanterns along the road lit it up. A brief rain had fallen earlier, about at the time the sky had darkened and the sun had gone to sleep. The moon hadn't revealed itself yet, but the stars peaked out behind almost transparent clouds.

This unpleasant car ride had lasted for a while. Sangy's House of night wasn't really in our city. Once, a long time ago, it was in the heart of the city, but when every vampyre or fledgling was shot outside of campus, they decided to move. Hunter's really couldn't have a heart. They don't care if the one they shoot is their relative. They don't care if it's their ex or, a once, best friend. They shoot because all they see is a monster. Every Hunter is different, but when you come to one last detail, they're all the same. They're all religious. And I don't mean praying once a year. They are _very_ religious. Maybe we should be happy – the hunt for vampyres have made them stick together. Not hating each other for differences. They have a common goal which they plan to destroy.

Hurray, a perfect world!

…For everyone but them. Us. I didn't even know before I was marked. Are the Hunters humans or are they the real monsters?

Neither my father nor I was religious. Because in Sangy, you couldn't choose. You were an atheist or you joined the Hunt. There was nothing in between. Most people knew in High School whether they valued vampyres as monsters or not. I made my decision when he was marked.

A right turn, a left one. The lanterns along the way grew with wider spaces in between them.

Raindrops raised down the windows. The windshield wiper tried frantically to whip them all away, but every second it came new ones from the roof. Inside of those water drops, little universes evolved. The stars came from the reflections of the lanterns. The ground was the glass of the window and the sky was the metallic blue color from our car. Our breaths became the mystical mist covering the shiny ground. It almost looked as beautiful as the scene outside of the car.

The water drops soon were joined as the sky started crying shimmering tears. You barely noticed their existence. But if you looked closely beneath the light from the lanterns, you could see the brief rain. And the drops outside of the light's reach were playing hide-and-seek with your gaze.

Though, sooner or later, I could see it. The metal fences reaching for the sky. The gothic castle embracing the moon in a magnificent way. The tiny sparks of the candles outside of the temple, built in appreciation for their goddess. It actually was kind of beautiful. I liked the garden, that probably would be my grave yard. OR well, I don't know what they do with their bodies when Nyx's collected the spirits. That's actually a relief. Not that the bodies mystically disappears, but that Nyx's watching over me. I hope she does at least. Suddenly, I felt like staring up at the inner ceiling of the car and wave. I raised my hand, but then realized. What the hell am I doing? I lowered my arm and folded my hands in my lap, feeling extremely stupid.

The car took a right turn and pulled into the parking lot of the House of Night.

"Gems, you seem distracted" my father noticed, as he opened the trunk and took out my bag for me. Why couldn't he just give up?

I reached for my things.

"Oh nothing, just thinking, you know" I really hoped he wouldn't know what I was thinking about.

Unwillingly he let go of my things, giving me a begging look and said;

"You're sure you don't want me to follow you in, get your stuff in place and so on?"

"No, I'm pretty sure. I will be fine" I said, and felt kind of pathetic when I barely could hold my things in the air for a few seconds while he could do it for minutes with one hand.

"I promise you, I'm not going to eat you. Oh my goodness, you're so annoying!"

I tried the next strategy. Annoyed teenager. Worked almost everytime. He usually did what I wanted when I acted like a bitch. "Please just go! You're embarrassing me"

HE looked a bit disappointed, looked in the ground for a while. He played with his car keys for a few seconds.

"Well then, Gemma, I guess this is good-bye"

I was shocked he used my whole name; he hadn't done that in years. I think he was trying to be respectful and give me some space. Nice of him since I probably wouldn't see him ever again.

He pulled me into a very tight hug that really surprised me. But with the arm I didn't carry my bag, I squeezed him back. The tears building up in my eyes tried to flee, but I quickly untangled me from his arms and murmured a quiet good-bye. Just like any teenager would to an extremely worried parent letting you away to a summer camp.

After that, I walked off to the House of Night, with my father's begging gaze in my back. It took all of my self-control not to turn around and hug him one last time.

As I walked up the campus towards the House of Night, the word home felt too weird to use right now, the few fledglings outside hissed at me. I felt like a bride which the guests thought expecting me to eat them. That probably didn't come out right, did it? I bit my lip.

When I had walked up half of my aisle, four vampyres with different tattoos came towards me. They stationed themselves in a circle around me. There wasn't one single way that I could go without being sure they would stop me. There was no turning back now. I swallowed the panic. Was that my breakfast coming up again?

"In the service of Nyx I hereby withdraws the rights you once had about your returning to the other world. You dared to enter her lands, in her almighty name I hereby makes her the judge of what your destiny will be."

He put his finger on the same part the Marker had did a few hours ago, before I terrified watched what happened next, without being able to do as much as breath. My whole body was paralyzed. Someone put their fingers on my eyelids and closed my eyes. Something that felt like an enternal midnight began and didn't end in several hours.


	4. Chapter 4

I heard voices I didn't recognize as my mind started to clear up, just like surprising raindrops from a clear blue sky. I tried to clench my fingers, and succeeded to move them a tiny bit.

Though, the idea of being surrounded of vampires that somehow had made me faint, wasn't very appealing. Therefor I hoped they hadn't seen my small signs of consciousness.

Someone's steps echoed around me, that's how I knew I wasn't outside anymore. Or well, I couldn't feel the cold beneath me anymore neither, but it was nice to know that they hadn't buried me or something. Maybe that's prejudiced, but what the hell. Can't I have just a little fun about the monsters, before I'm turning into a monster myself? But maybe I should leave that joke out later. Just in case.

I could feel the smell of smoke, but just lightly, like a lit candle or so. I was lying on something soft, a sofa I think, and the room was very small. The air was thick and irritating.

Opening my eyes was inviting, but I knew that as I did, I was going to face a new reality. I really felt like crying at that; why couldn't I just keep my eyes closed the rest of my life? Juts walk into a trap the Hunters set up and never be a burden to the world anymore?

The only thing I could find that was positive about this was the memory of his face that had painfully faded. You could just as well take the mental photo I had of him, and slowly pull in away from the camera lens that was my gaze. Until all I could see was a grey blur.

I shouldn't think of him this much. It couldn't be healthy. He could have changed. He could have died. Or even worse, he could have forgotten me.

Stop it.

I snapped out of my depressing thoughts. What is happening to me? If this was going to be that happy ending I wanted it to be, I really should put my mind in the right damn mood.

I concentrated on voices instead.

"..taking so long?"

Mostly whispers now, instead of the wild discussion that I had ignored earlier. I regret that, it's much easier to get a clue what the subject is, if they aren't so careful with the information.

"…don't know… something wrong?"

"Don't…so"

"Maybe she can hear us" the first voice said, a female one, that had been washed with too much softener. It was almost creepy, how alike it was a princess-one.

The woman cleared her throat.

"Gemma Brown, we wish that you open your eyes"

Hmpf. This was going to be entertaining, I figured. Some part of me knew I should act respectfully to these new faces, which I hadn't had a chance to see yet. Another part, the majority of me, felt like being a total ass to the people with sapphire blue tattoos in their faces.

"What should we do, Jenni?" the less commanding voice spoke now, the one that hadn't told me to look at them.

They weren't even trying to keep their voices down anymore.

"I don't know" the woman called Jenni said. "should we ask the guards to come back?"

"They knew what they did, I'm sure of it" I couldn't hear any signs, but I knew that someone, if not both of them, bit their lip. At least that was my first reaction when I was worried. And maybe it's just me. I felt like biting my lip, but then I realized I was dead.

"Maybe.." not-Jenni said "maybe we could call her father?"

She was bluffing. She was sooo bluffing. There was so chance they had gotten my father's…

I opened one of my eyes, briefly, trying to catch any signs. A wink. A smile. _Anything._ I couldn't see any.

Then one of them caught my eyes. Damn.

I widened my eyes, hoping that this bluff wasn't that obvious, and shouted "I'M ALIVE!"

Then I saw a reflection in a mirror on the other side of the room. There was no chance what so ever that they were buying this.

My wide smile died and my teeth sunk into my lip. I felt like falling dead. Or sink into the floor. Or maybe both.

One of the two women, blonde just as me though much shorter, looked amused with creepily blue eyes. She was very tall and thin, with very beautiful tattoos, including leaves and butterflies. I think I saw the silhouette of a bumblebee in there somewhere.

"That always makes the trick" she sad and made a nod at the side. "This is Patricia, she's a maid here at Sangy's House of Night. And nothing scares the truth out of teenagers these days, than to threaten with some embarrassment."

Patricia, waved at me with a maliciously smile. Then she turned around and left.

"I'm, as you might have guessed, Jenni." She put her head on the side, and her long, blonde bang fell in her eyes, and got tangled into her eye lashes. "I will be your mentor here on your life long journey"

I didn't move from the couch I was lying on. My eyes still wasn't fixed to the dark.

"Come on, honey, the hallway isn't going to bite you." Jenni held out her hand to me. "We can talk as we're walking, I'm sure you have questions"

I didn't want to, but that last part caught my attention. I did have questions.

_Does he like me? Does he remember me? Has he died?_

Damn it. Not that type of questions.

I shook my head to get rid of the annoying thoughts. One thing at the time, I told myself.

Suspiciously, I took her hand and followed her out of the room, and into the vampyres' fortress. And yes, the irony is endless.

Damn it. I had to stay focused.

"Where is everybody?"

I asked, hoping that the answer was somehow interesting.

The halls seemed to be empty, along with the campus and every corner of the school.

"It's about eight-thirty" Jenni explained. "they're in class, you just missed them"

She said, and giggled.

"But shouldn't you be in class, too? Teaching people vampyre-stuff?"

I felt really stupid asking this, but I had to know; was all those things about the vampyres on the House of Night true or just fiction, trying to make us join the Hunt?

She stroke her bangs out of her sight.

"I'm not a teacher, I'm the gardener, hon." She said and pointed at her face. "The goddess blessed me with some green fingers. Or should I say blue ones?" she said, and giggles again.

She actually made me smile.

We reached a hallway, which was confusingly alike the one at school, where I had seen the Tracker for the first time, but here the whole left side was full of arches that led to a great campus. I could see the exactly alike wall on the opposite side of the garden.

In the middle there was a round spot, surrounded by a very low stone wall. In the middle there was a statue of Nyx, around it there were growing wild flowers.

I was amazed, it was autumn for goodness sake, but still the flowers' color's burnt like they were painted. They reminded me of summer, and lots of the summers I actually missed.

I slowly walked out there, wondering if she would kill me if I picked one of them. I gave it a try.

I closed my eyes and reached out, grabbed a stem and bent.

Snap.

I held my hand in front of my face and opened my eyes. A beautiful, bright buttercup. I put it to my nose. Yep. I smelled just as fantastic as it looked. This couldn't be natural.

"I grew them myself, aren't they just beautiful?" Jenni said, with a deep, content sigh.

"Oh! I'm so, sooo sorry" I said, and almost dropped it.

"It's fine! It's fine!" she put her hand over mine and made me squeeze it harder. "You keep it, Buttercup. And hey, the flower even looks a little like you!"

It really did. Brightly blonde petals. Soft green iris.

I guess Buttercup was going to be my first nickname here, and I had a feeling that I wasn't ever going to be called Gemma by Jenni again.


	5. Chapter 5

"You must be eager to see your room?" she asked, as I was admiring the mystical flowers.

"Ermh… I don't know" I said. My mind was hypnotized by the brightly colored petals my mentor had made grow there.

Maybe I was curious. Very curious. Who was I going to live with over the coming years? Where was I going to live? Was I going to live at all? Normally I appreciated mysteries, but this time, it'd be nice to know…

But no, I didn't want to enter that room, and suddenly face the reality that was going to bite me sooner or later. But somehow I told myself that if I didn't see it, it wasn't real.

Please don't take me there.

Jenni looked doubting at me, wrinkled the skin around her bright blue eyes while she was thinking. Then all of her face relaxed.

"I think it would be good for you to get there right away, Buttercup. Come, I promise you that you will have a bed to sleep in, not a coffin"

She said, and winked.

"Your roommate sleeps in a bed too, by the way. Though she's in class now, so don't worry too much"

I guess my face said an awful lot about what was moving around in my mind at that point.

She took my wrist and practically dragged me through the halls. It was not that I didn't want to go there; just that my feet had other plans and really didn't want to cooperate.

I tried to figure out why my feet acted like the way they did.

She had mentioned this epic roommate I apparently had gotten, not to forget that this poor girl was going to have ME as a neighbor. It was her I felt sorry for, really, not myself. I was just tired of other people at the moment. Maybe at the fact that my old "friends" hadn't said good-bye… I don't know. I shouldn't care. I never liked them, anyhow.

My thoughts didn't make sense, I noticed.

Sentences of randomness flew through my head, and the different pieces didn't fit together.

The hallway started to fade out in the edges.

Where is he?

My feet stopped working. Damn it.

Jenni turned around, I couldn't focus at her face at first; there were three layers of her, moving around her face just to annoy me.

"What's wrong, Buttercup?" the wrinkle between her eyes was back again.

I shook my head, more to clear my head than to answer her. She squeezed her lips together in disbelief.

"I _promise_ you, it's going to be fine" she said, and then her face was gone and I stared into her blond-waved-covered scalp.

My feet seemed fooled by her words, but my mind wasn't that sure. Now I simply moved without wanting to.

The halls were truly beautiful; rough, stone walls that somehow managed to look inviting. Flames from fires and glows from lights shone from different angles of the different rooms. Embracing the various scenes in a magnificent, golden shadow.

Many of the windows looked like the ones I'd seen in the little, though often visited, chapel in the end of the main street. Some people went there after school. Maybe they had a crush on someone. Maybe they had too much homework. Or maybe they searched God's help in the biggest decision in their lives; kill vampires because he wants you to, or don't join the Hunt.

Laugh all you want, though that's about the biggest part of our life here in Sangy.

Anyhow, back to windows, I thought with an annoyed shake of my head. These were the same style, though the woman in the windows didn't look like Virgin Mary, nor like one of the angels in the city's chapel. Her thick black hair and kind face… It didn't remind me of any of the saints or characters in the Bible or the Christian faith. I simply supposed it was Nyx. I examined her face, closely. I couldn't see any monstrous features in her kind face. The only thing telling me she wasn't human were her delicate tattoos, which grew down her cheeks and formed magnificent tear drops.

I could see her in almost every window we passed.

Compared to my last school, it was awesome. Really. Not that it had much to beat, with abused walls and gum covered floors. But maybe I shouldn't be convinced yet, should I? Never trust anything with fangs, as the Hunter's tend to say. Idiotic, as lots of the Hunters have pets.

I take a deep breath and try to suffocate my annoying thoughts.

Chin up. Eyes forward. Move.

We passed a few halls, down one staircase and even through an empty classroom. Then we entered a massive hall, which really didn't go along with the rest of the school.

Dark wooden, chocolate floors, white paint covering bricks in the walls and two gigantic staircases, in the same wood as the floors. It looked so fancy, really didn't belong in a High School. Amazed I let my eyes devour every angle of the room.

"Pretty awesome, don't you think, Buttercup?"

Her voice made me jump out of my sneakers.

She started to laugh.

That surprised me, a little. Somehow I had imagined vampyres didn't laugh. At least not in the light way Jenni did. Seemed too vividly for such a dead person. Or should I say undead? Damn it. It was much easier when you hadn't talked to one.

"Sorry I scared you. How about finally seeing your room?"

She started walking upwards the right staircase.

I ran a bit to catch up with her.

"What's the left stair for?" I asked. I tried to sound silent and shy, but I think the curiosity shone through. I should never try to lie. Or play theater. It's one in a hundred that I actually succeed. Unless playing a bitch, I'm pretty good at being a bitch. Somewhere deep down, I think we are all meant to be such.

After what seemed like an endless number of turns and numbers on doors, she finally got to a door that stopped her. She put her hand on the doorknob and glanced at me in the pent of her eyes. A brief smile danced on her lips.

"Are you ready?"

A thousand inappropriate things crawled over my tongue.

"Yes, Jenni." A pathetic, tiny whisper. I hate my voice so much.

And she opened the door.

Baby blue walls and light wooden floors overpowered my eyes and I had to blink frenetically for them to fixate. Every piece of furniture seemed to match the floors. Everything seemed to be made out of wood; a desk, two wardrobes, two beds ( of course with matching, checked covers ). The two beds drowned in an ocean of pillows in a variety of blue shades.

One of the beds bore the weight of my suitcase. Above the other once I saw posters of One Direction. Ugh. This was going to be a hard time, I realized at that moment.

I took my shoes of, so that I wouldn't destroy the floors, and then I walked straight in, and emidietly I was amazed, the floors were so warm and cozy…. Weirdly enough tears started to build up in my eyes. Irritated, I whipped them away. Then I crawled down and lie on the floor.

Jenni gave me one of her usual laughs.

"Nice, huh? The whole school has underfloor heating. It's pretty sweet in winter time"

She walked through the room and explained stuff to me. Only a fourth of my head was paying attention. You see, the rest was realizing how comfortable the floor was, and how heavy my eyelids were.

A few things stuff though;

The bathroom was in the corner of my roommate's side of the room.

The clothes in my closet was mostly mine from home ( I later realized that my bag was empty ). Though a few, blue-and-black-checked things were new. I had to wear at least one of them every day.

You found a little kitchen in the end of the hall outside my room.

And last but not least; "I put your phone to charge, I saw you only had five percent's left"

This was my kind of mentor, my human one, Mrs Barett, thought today's technology was as impossible as french was to me. C'est impossible. Okay, sorry, lucky strike. And you should hear me say it…

After a silent "I will leave you alone for a while", Jenny closed the door and left me.

I then crawled up to my bed and took my phone in my hands. After a deep breath, I clicked a button so that the screen lit up. I had five missed calls and two text.

One was from Daniella, one from Chloe and one from Sophie, and two came from Natalie. Nell, as I mentioned her earlier. No one have the energy to call her by her real name. It's too long for racingly talking teenagers.

One of the texts came from my operator, and right now I didn't care how much my phone bill was. The other one was from Nell. "How r u hun?"

She cared. Or well, at least she pretended she did. Along with my other Barbie friends. Maybe this wasn't the end of the world after all.

I really felt like talking to her, so I took my phone and called Nell.

I almost broke my Iphone to the floor when it told me I had used all the calls I had this month. I hate the end of every month ever existed during my sixteen years in this world.

So I lie down in my bed again, reading the text and looking at the missed calls. Some kind of try to show that they miss me. That they try to find me. That they don't care that I'm a monster.

I think I still held my phone in my hand when I fell asleep, all I know is that I lost consciousness is that I had a smile on my face as my thoughts sailed away.


End file.
